Do Open Source Developers Respond to Competition? The Case Study
Year: 2007
Type: preprint
Abstract: This paper traces the history of TeX, the open source typesetting program. TeX was an early and very successful open source project that imposed its standards in a particularly competitive environment and inspired many advances in the typesetting industry. Developed over three decades, TeX came into competition with a variety of open source and proprietary alternatives. I argue from this case study that open source developers derive direct and indirect network externalities from the use of their software by others and must therefore consider non-developers' needs to make their software more attractive to a broader audience and more competitive with proprietary alternatives.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Alexia Gaudeul, William James Adams, Jacques André, Nelson H. F. Beebe, Barbara Beeton, Karl Berry, Lance Carnes, Thomas Esser, David Fuchs, Bernard Gaulle, Hans Hagen, Yannis Haralambous, Jim Hefferon, David Kastrup, Donald Knuth, Leslie Lamport, Wendy McKay, Barry MacKichan, Frank Mittelbach, Oren Patashnik, Simon Pepping, John Plaice, Fabrice Popineau, Sebastian Rahtz, Denis Roegel, Chris Rowley, Joachim Schröd, Karel Skoupý
Institution: University of East Anglia
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Science Applications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3150736747